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He could hear it, but I guarantee my parents wouldn’t have. How is it that he understands me so much better than the people who are supposed to love me the most?

“It was weird last night at Ann’s house.” My voice cracks. “She was my best friend. I don’t even know what she is at this point.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything is different,” I whisper. I want to add because of you, but I hold back. “They’re boring, and they’re also so desperate to judge everything. They even said I shouldn’t be friends with Kappy just because of her name.”

I laugh, but the sound is tinged with hysteria. It’s crazy here. That’s the real thing. It’s fucking crazy.

“You’re growing up and she isn’t,” he says softly. “Mac and I were friends when we were little, and then he just kind of remained a bratty eleven-year-old when we got to middle school. My mom told me this is the time in life when some people continue to grow and some people stop, and that means you end up leaving them behind.”

I can’t believe this is the same woman my father called a drunk floozy.

“It’s hard because…these were my best friends. It was bad enough discovering I couldn’t trust Ann last winter, but maybe it was all empty before then, too. Like we were close because it was convenient for her and nothing more.” My words end abruptly. Everything I’m saying might be something I say of Ford eventually too.

“You have other friends now, though,” he says.

“I know. It just makes me wonder if all relationships are essentially that—do people only care about other people as long as they’re pleased by them?”

He exhales heavily. “I think that’s the difference between real love and real friendship and everything else. There was a period of time when my mother wasn’t happy with what I was doing. She’s still not happy with what my sister is doing. It didn’t change her love for us. We’ve discussed this before, but don’t you think your parents would still love you even if you got into drugs or decided you were an atheist?”

No, even if they did, they’d either lock me away or set me out to sea, pretending I’d never belonged to them. So, between real love and some sad approximation of it, what I have is the latter. “No.”

He hesitates. “That can’t be true. Look⁠—”

His words are cut off by a girlish shriek, and a door opening. “Ford, come on!” a girl cries. “We’re waiting for you.”

He said he was going away with Nico and Matt. He never mentioned girls. But of course there are girls. They follow his group everywhere. Of course.

“You should go,” I say stiffly. “I shouldn’t have called.”

“Wait,” he says to me. “I can talk. It’s not a big deal.”

My throat is tight with the desire to cry. “I have to go anyway,” I lie. “Ann is coming out.”

“Okay, well, if you want me to come get you⁠—”

“No, no, seriously, I’m fine,” I reply. “Gotta go.”

I hang up and bend low over my lap as the tears begin. Just because Ford is hanging out with those girls doesn’t mean he’s doing anything with them. In fact, I don’t think he would. But aren’t we just prolonging the inevitable?

Whether I take off for Bolivia or not, he’s leaving and he’s got a new life ahead of him that won’t include me.

I remain in the garden for a while, gathering my thoughts. I feel abandoned in more ways than I can name, but that’s not what bothers me most. It’s that I haven’t been abandoned at all. I’d just allowed myself, mistakenly, to think I was found.

I pick myself up at last and start walking. The uniformity of the houses I pass makes me want to cry. The fact that I have to worry I’m being watched and reported on makes me want to cry even harder.

Without even thinking it through, I cross the boundary of New Hope into Odenton. I’ve never once entered Odenton without my parents. I always hated coming here because of the way people stared at us, in our conservative dresses.

No one seems to look at me today, but I still get the feeling that I’m being watched. Maybe it’s in my head, or maybe it’s just a wiser piece of me warning that someone from New Hope is probably in the area, and whatever I do here will get reported back. I look longingly at Starbucks, wishing I could get the drink Ford bought me that one time.

A tap on my shoulder makes me jump. It’s as if I’m about to be tried for even wishing I could do things I haven’t done.

I recognize the woman behind me. She’s from New Hope, but her dress is thin with age and frayed. Her wiry hair is unkempt. Mrs. Humboldt. I think she’s barely older than my mom, but she looks ancient by contrast. There have been rumors about her for years—rumors posed as concern. That she was unwell. That she had mysterious bruises when she was married. That her husband was angered when she couldn’t get pregnant. He died unexpectedly, and no one was ever quite clear on what killed him, but her brother was as senior in the community as my father, so I doubt anyone asked.

“Do you know who I am?” she asks.

I glance around me. “Umm, Mrs. Humboldt?”